1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method of writing information in which a recording medium onto which information is externally writable is used and information is written onto such a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are cases where information included in an electronic document such as a text or an image which is viewable on a monitor screen of a computer is used in another place, or reviewed at a later timing, and where such a document is always posted in a prominent place in order to draw attention to the information. In these cases, for example, the information is usually printed onto a paper sheet by a printer with using a printing function of an application software in the computer, or, when the information is simple, it is manually written onto a notebook or a slip of paper.
Such information is widely varied. For example, the information may be fragmentary one containing only necessary data such as a subway or road map to a place to which the user is to visit, or a contact address of a person to whom the user is to meet in a destination. Along with recent popularization of the Internet, various information is distributed on the WWW (World Wide Web) and can be viewed with a Web browser. In such information, there are many fragmentary information pieces such as those described above. In the case where such fragmentary information is a map, a contact address, or like information, it is often that such information becomes no longer required when the user reaches the destination or the business is ended, or is very transient.
Even when necessary information is fragmental and transient and consists of part of information displayed on a monitor screen, printing out of such information must consumes at least whole one sheet. In this case, as compared with document information which is produced on the premise of a long-term use or storage, the resulting printed material is used during a shorter term, and has a smaller printed area ratio or has a larger blank area. Therefore, the paper resource is wastefully consumed. Since information displayed on the screen must be developed into print data for a printer, a prolonged time period is required. Moreover, for example, information on a screen which is divided by complicated frames on a Web browser sometimes fails to be printed in the same manner as that on the screen.
When necessary information is manually written onto a notebook or the like instead of printing out, paper sheets can be prevented from being wastefully consumed. However, manual transcription of information which is not in the form of text data, such as that of a fine map is hardly performed and requires a long time period and much labor.
Image forming techniques which are aimed at reducing the difference between an image on a display screen and a printed image, omitting the printing time, and reducing the size of an apparatus are described in, for example, Patent literatures 1, 2, and 3. The techniques described in the literatures are related to image forming apparatuses which have excellent portability, and in which a photosensitive sheet that is photosensitively colored is in close contact with a display: screen such as a liquid crystal display device, and the photosensitive sheet is irradiated with light emitted from the display screen, thereby copying an image onto the sheet. In the image forming techniques, a photosensitive sheet is employed for recording an image. Such a photosensitive sheet is a consumption article which is not reusable. In the same manner as the above-mentioned case where printing is performed on a usual paper sheet, the resource is wastefully consumed for a short time period, thereby producing a problem in that an influence on the environment cannot be eliminated.
In order to solve the problem, a method of copying image information is proposed in Patent literature 4. In the method, a whole or part of image or text information is displayed and recorded as a visible image in the form of an optical pattern on a rewritable recording medium. According to the method, a whole or part of any information displayed on a monitor screen or the like can be copied in real time as image information equivalent to that on the screen onto a displaying recording medium which can be rewritten many times, which has excellent portability, and in which an influence on the environment can be suppressed.
In the image information forming method for an image forming apparatus or the like which is described in the literature, digital information is once converted into an optical pattern and then recorded, or the information is formed into analog information. When the recorded information is to be processed or used at a later timing, for example, the information must be reconverted into digital data, thereby causing a problem in that such information cannot be easily handled.
In the method, a rewritable medium is used as the displaying and recording medium. When information is erased or other information is written, therefore, the contents which have been displayed cannot be referred. With respect to a paper sheet which is conventionally used, contents which are once printed are hardly erased, and stored as they are, so that they can be referred at a later timing as a result of searching. By contrast, in the displaying recording medium, contents which were previously displayed cannot be referred after a rewriting operation. This problem is caused not only in such a displaying recording medium but also in various rewritable recording media.